first frost tonight

Crap!

marauders!

A few days ago:

Today:

Look at this mess!


I noticed this as i was leaving for work this morning, and when i came back in the afternoon i thought i would take a picture of the damage and spend some time speculating as to the culprit. However, when i went back there to take the picture, the identity of the culprit was immediately clear.

The damned things don't even run away anymore when they see me coming. They just saunter, slowly, because their bellies are so full that they can't actually move fast. It is really irrirating. I am going to have to break the squirrel trap out again, and trap them all before the cold weather comes and they take refuge in the attic. Yuck, what a chore. And sorry, Catherine, i was going to send you some sunflower seeds but i think they ate them all.

Perhaps i will take up my neighbor on his offer and just borrow his pellet gun...

a recipie

I did mention earlier that i would be putting up some recipies, so without further ado i present for you

Kate's twice-burnt yellow tomato sauce

for 4 people

Ingredients:
-about a dozen yellow plum tomatoes
-some leftover red onion (about half an onion)
-6 garlic cloves, minced
-thyme
-fresh basil
-salt
-parmesian cheese
-juice of one dessicated lime

1. Saute onion & garlic in some olive oil until soft.

2. Here i thought i would be clever. I hate blanching tomatoes to peel them, so i thought i would just throw them in with the onions, turn the heat up to high, and wait a very short time. Thus, there would be enough heat to peel off the skins without having to go through that blanching routine. In theory.

3. Answer ringing phone and immediately find yourself deep in a conversation with a friend

4. Strong smell of burning onions wafts through the apartment. Uh, oh, strike one. Burning onions are not pleasant, but i thought -- hmm, maybe they will lend some flavor of caramelization to the sauce, i'll go with it.

5. Peel tomatoes, using tongs and fingers. This worked fairly well, though the blanching thing does work better. When the tomatoes are peeled, turn the burner on to low and cover the pot -- they need to stew and become sauce.

6. Check your email.

7. Recieve email you have been waiting for for 2 weeks!!! (in my case it was a file from my colleague which hopefully will enable me to finish up our joint paper. So i immediately launched myself into doing some math....)

8. 45 minutes later, strong smell of burning tomatoes wafts through the apartment.

9. Oh shit!

10. Gently scrape what looks like a scant handful of smashed yellow tomato pulp off of the thick black burnt layer on the bottom of the pot, and put it into another pot.

11. Desperately attempt to salvage the situation by throwing anything and everything available in this new pot. This includes, but is not limited to -- water, olive oil, parmesian cheese, thyme, basil (fresh), and a little juice that i managed to squeeze out of an extremely old lime that was on the bottom of the fruit bowl. (the yellow tomatoes are very sweet so the sauce needed a touch of acidity).

12. Serve on top of angel hair pasta, with a sprig of basil for decoration, and when they ask what it is, don't tell them.

My dh ate three servings.

hyacinth beans

These are purely ornamental, i think you can actually eat the beans if you want but they don't taste good. I planted them in the middle of the garden and they are finally starting to do something. Next year, i will start them inside or something, because they took too damned long. Anyway, the flowers are pretty.

melon picture

[photo removed]

Here is A with one of our melons. I let them ripen more and they are good now. They still sound the same to me, but they seem to be nice and yellow inside. I have one left, when we cut that last one open i will take a picture of it for you. A was very disappointed that they were yellow -- 'YELLOW watermelons? Can't you grow anything NORMAL?'

Uh no...why would i grow it if i can buy it at the store....duh.

kate's tomato tastings 2006

This post idea is blatantly stolen from Hanna but she did ask us to post our own so i am doing so. Not in as great a detail as she is doing, though, for which i thank her! The penny in each picture is for scale -- i could not find a quarter....



This is 'Cherokee Purple', currently my all-time favorite tomato. 'Purple' in tomato-speak seems to mean very dark pinkish-red. These are meaty and juicy and very very flavorful. They are, in fact, the veritable embodiment of what i think of as 'tomato'. This is the archetypical tomato that i have been searching for all my life.

That said, i am a little displeased with the quality of the seed that i got for these this year. I ordered most of my varieties from Baker Creek and i have been happy with all of them but this one. (in years past, when we lived in Virginia, i ordered everything from Southern Exposure.) The resulting Cherokee Purple plants were really kind of spotty -- most of them were true to what i know of as 'Cherokee Purple' but at least two plants (out of 12) are producing tomatoes which are not 'purple' enough. They are still tasty -- but even my dh (who is not particularly interested in gardening per se) said 'but these are not Cherokee Purple!"

So i am hoping that was an aberration, because all of the other tomatoes i got from them were fine.



These are 'Yellow Bell' that i ordered from Southern Exposure. They are extremely prolific and a favorite from many years of gardening in Virginia. Here in MI though i admit to some real disappointment. They are not anywhere near as sweet as they were in VA. In fact they are kind of tasteless, suitable perhaps for canning or yellow ketchup or a sauce -- but i swear i used to just pick them off the vine and enjoy them straight and they were my favorites, when we lived in the south. So maybe they really need the hot humid weather to be good. Of course we had hot humid weather in spades this summer (hotter than i remember ever in VA even!) so i don't know what is up with that. Maybe they need hot weather EARLY in the season. Anyway, regardless of my worry about blossom end rot earlier, i have these blasted tomatoes coming out my ears now. I do not think i will plant more than 2 plants of it next year.

New this year, here are the 'insurgent tomatoes', Rouge d'Irak...i try to stay away from politics on my blogs but when i read this description in the catalog of course i had to order these tomatoes:


Medium-sized fruit are finely flavored; good yields, too. This variety is endangered even in its own country, where saving seeds was made illegal under the "Colonial Powers" of the United States. Under the new law, Iraqi farmers must only plant seeds from "protected varieties" from international corporations. Is this our unique way of making democracy?

Don't know if that is true but if so it will not do....however the tomatoes unfortunately will not do either. They are even and globular and red and blemishless and produce wonderfully -- every visitor to my garden wants one. Half the time when you cut it open there is some rot inside. If there is no rot, it looks pretty but it still doesn't taste any good. I think this is a the great-grandchild of a Monsanto product masquerading as an 'Iraqi Heirloom'. Which brings up the question -- have the people at Baker Creek had much experience bartering for goods in Muslim/Middle eastern countries? Because i have tried this myself, and even with good knowledge of what i was buying i still got fleeced from head to foot (compared with the local economy). This is not an easy thing for westerners to do, the culture is totally different over there.

Brandywine. The ubiquitous heirloom -- when we were down in VA you could even get Brandywine plants at Wal-mart. I personally don't particularly like them, but i got a free packet with my Baker Creek order so i started a few plants. Other people do like them -- they are tasty and big and funny-shaped. It is a pink tomato, not quite 'red' but still very flavorful.

'White Currant'. These are lovely, though they are not 'white'. They actually start out whit-ish but if you leave them out there they turn properly yellow. They are very sweet, prolific and flavorful currant tomatoes and i am very pleased with them. Definitely a keeper.

Finally, at the last minute i went to a sale and bought two other tomato plants. One was mismarked and i have no idea what it is and it sucks anyway so never mind about that. The other is 'Black pineapple' which i totally love and will grow next year. It is beautiful -- color goes from green to deep purple on the same tomato, it is very flavorful (though a little on the 'green' side of tomato flavor) and the few i had grew nice and big...

melons

How in the heck do you tell when watermelons are ripe? I followed my mother's advice of 'knock on it, it is supposed to sound like your hardwood floor'. So i have been knocking on these melons regularly, and recently one started sounding like my hardwood floor, kind of. So we excitedly picked it and cut it open.

It was nowhere near ripe.

So apparently i need further direction...

sunflowers

The sunflowers have finally started to bloom. So i took a picture for you, Catherine.

I made this arrangement with whatever was at hand. I was suprised it turned out pretty because really all the colors clash. This is the first time i cut FLOWERS from my GARDEN, except when i brought roses to my mom. But it is too hot to go outside to look at them!


The heat is doing wonders for the tomatoes, though. Around here it is tomatoes for dinner every night! Yes!

melons

got a baby one

and three 'big' ones. They are much bigger than this already (by the time i uploaded the pics....) One is growing in the lawn.

A new low...

....is reached when your husband is apologizing to the insurance man for the state of the vegetable garden.

I will try to weed and tidy this weekend, really i will.....sigh.

my bad

Sorry, i should have written 'i know nobody but Catherine reads this blog'. Because i know you read it! And welcome to my blog, FarmgirlCyn!

I know i am supposed to be on hiatus but i logged on here to share photos of a minor miracle -- it looks like we will have melons! But i can't find the USB cable so i can't download the pics from my camera...ridiculous!

Another day, though...

Eggplant 'Rosa Bianca'

Has no eggplants yet but it has beautiful hairy purple flowers.


Not that anyone actually reads this blog but i will be off for a little while. I will try to post more pictures when i have them though...

gardening with small children

...is very rewarding, to someone anyway -- not sure who that is. I submit that it takes a great deal of patience. They run the other way when you try to suggest an activity...
...they seem to enjoy picking the green tomatoes and ONLY the green ones....
...they won't hold still when asked to pose with that first big tomato...
and they would rather smash the foods than eat them.
okay, i don't have a picture of the actual smashing process, but you can rest assured that within several seconds the small tomato pictured near her hand was pulp ground into my french tablecloth. Well, c'est la vie...

I look forward to next year, when she will be a little older and even more inclined to 'help'!

PS. please don't inquire about the choice of rain boots with a miniskirt. C is very headstrong about certain things, and in the matter of dress i sometimes figure it is easier not to argue...

Turkish eggplants

Tonight, the dh was grilling, so i picked the most orange of the 'Turkish Orange' eggplants for dinner. They are still the size of golfballs or, well, eggs. They never got any bigger. Here they are on the plant
and on the table
and in the pan ready for cooking.
What he does is put the vegetable in the iron pan, drizzle with olive oil and salt, and put it on the grill. Some magic happens which i cannot reproduce (one time A & i tried to turn on the grill when the dh was away, and managed only to make a fireball which burned A's eyebrows off. So i won't touch the damned thing now.) and we have grilled eggplant for dinner:
We have yet to find the vegetable that is not good prepared this way. Broccoli, for example, is completely scrumptious. These eggplants were overall good, but one piece was very bitter and unpleasant. So it must depend greatly on 'how' ripe they are. Of course they all look equally ripe to me so it is a crapshoot, really.
C didn't like them at ALL and demanded steak and potatoes instead.

oh, those red ones

I forgot to mention those red tomatoes. I have no idea what the hell they are.

At the garden sale aforementioned, i bought two tomato plants. The 'black pineapple' and a plant of 'yellow pear'. I thought it would be cute to grow the yellow pears in a pot on my balcony, so that Chloe could go out and pick them and eat them. This is what i got from my supposed 'yellow pear' plant:
So i don't know what they are. Also they were not entirely ripe when i picked them...but some animal had discovered them and was pecking at them, so i didn't have much choice. The taste of these mystery tomatoes was insipid at best. Kinda tasted like supermarket tomatoes.

Now THAT was a nice waste of two dollars, if you ask me.

and here we have....

The first pile of tomatoes of the season!

You will notice i have artfully arranged this pile so that you cannot see the blossom end rot on the yellow ones...ha ha.

This is how they looked cut up for dinner...we just ate them straight, with a little salt.

That one which looks greenish is the dark one on the right in the first photo. It is a variety called 'Black Pineapple' that i got at a local garden sale. I am very very taken with it, it was by far the best tasting of the bunch. (though i must admit, the yellow ones were nasty because of the rot, it is not their fault really). I will surely grow this variety from seed next year.

Anyway, i am always interested in the comments of others, so there i am at the dinner table badgering my husband -- 'so what do you think of this black pineapple tomato? How do you think it compares to the other varieties that we usually grow? Isn't it wonderful?...Don't you think it is good? Do you not like it!?!?' .... he is sort of poking at his food in a desultory fashion and staring into space....perhaps i should not attempt to get a proper critique out of a guy who just came back from India the day before and is totally jet-lagged to hell....ya think??

zucchini

I am not growing zucchini in my garden. My family likes it but does not love it, and it seems that somehow someone is always growing it and there is more than enough to go around. So that was the case this year as well, when i found myself with three huge zucchinis to dispose of. So i found this recipie for Zucchini and Rosemary Soup and we all really enjoyed the result so i thought i would link it here. It is easy, tasty, and fresh...and uses up ALOT of zucchini. I recommend it.

Maybe next year i will even grow zucchini, for the flowers.

Oh....mid-july

I am very behind in my posts, i am going to try to post them all today and catch up. Ha! Just wait until august....

really this time

First tomatoes!

These are the 'White Currant' tomatoes. 'White' in tomatoes apparently means very very pale yellow...actually i think these are still slightly unripe from the flavor but i could not resist.

I also have several which are starting to turn the right colors nicely, i will take pictures in the next few days. Maybe the dh will have some fresh tomatoes waiting for him when he comes back from his trip!

culinary notes

I was just flipping through the pictures of the garden from before and thought i would make a few notes....

- the rocket bolted like, nearly instantly. It is amazing to look at it now in full flower and recall that it was baby rocket a mere month ago. I cannot eat it straight now. However, it is still very good to put a few pieces in with the other salads (they are working on bolting but have not gotten there yet). It is still bitter, but there are several things which have worked. One is to pair it with a vinagrette made with lemon-infused olive oil and with parmesian cheese. That works fairly well (of course when Catherine & Sarah came over i forgot the cheese....oops). The whole lemon-infused olive oil was an accident too -- we ran out of ordinary olive oil and dug up some specialty stuff that had been a gift. I think it would also taste very good with some nut oils, like walnut oil or pistachio oil. Not that i know where to get those in the States. Another thing which works is to put it with a sweet dressing, like a raspberry vinagrette. If you like sweet dressings, that is (the males in this household give them a big thumbs down).

- the 'White Wonder' cukes make great pickles (we know this from a few years back) but they make lousy table cucumbers. Or to be clearer -- the skin is very thick. So if you want to just eat them, you have to spend the time to peel them, and then they just look like regular cukes, nothing exciting. But i suspect the thick skin is exactly what made them such excellent, crispy refrigerator pickles. I really hope i can reproduce this effect this year, if we eventually stop eating them all at the table so there are some to pickle.

- maybe we should try a green tomato recipie, we seem to have tons. Well, when dh gets back...

Actually, there is one tomato of 'Cherokee Purple' variety which is starting to turn! It is now a pinkish color, they are very dark (almost purple) when ripe. I will be watching carefully...